Fire
History Origin Beatriz Bonilla da Costa followed an unusual career path, starting as an amateur model on the beaches of Rio, then becoming a showgirl and stage performer before finding herself serving as an undercover secret agent for the Brazilian government. In the course of one of her missions, she was exposed to the accident which granted her super-human powers, prompting her to assume the identity of the Green Fury and join the international superhero team the Global Guardians.Shortly after changing her name to the Green Flame, the Guardians' UN funding was withdrawn in the wake of the formation the Justice League International. Miss da Costa talked her teammate and friend Icemaiden into joining her in approaching the JLI embassy and asking for a job and remarkably, in the wake of Black Canary's resignation and the abduction of several members, the short-handed JLI took them on. Eventually, she once again changed her heroic name, this time to "Fire" in affinity with Icemaiden's shortening of her name to simply Ice. Justice League She served the longest continuous term of any JLI member, including an extended period of depowerment after an encounter with Doomsday, a period which sadly coincided with the death of her best friend, Ice, at the hands of the Overmaster. She subsequently returned to Brazil, and attempted to establish herself as the country's primary superhero. This met with variable success, which she blamed partly on the Martian Manhunter's visibility in the Southern hemisphere. Fire had retired from super-heroing to establish a career as an internet glamour girl when Maxwell Lord talked her and several other former JLI members into reforming as a group of "heroes for the common man" called the "Super Buddies". She found herself apartment-sharing with Mary Marvel and, in a characterization reminiscent of her former interactions with Ice, forced herself into the reluctant role of "babysitter" for the woefully naive teenager. When attempting to rescue Ice's spirit from Hell, Fire accidentally looked back, causing the spirit to vanish. During the Super Buddies' time in Hell, Etrigan the Demon suggested that it was Fire who was fated to die instead of Ice. Infinite Crisis It seems that after the dissolution of the Super Buddies, Fire had returned to her work as detective and secret agent. In that role she helped Booster Gold and Guy Gardner find the connection between Maxwell Lord and Blue Beetle's death. She then took part in an assault by her former teammates from Justice League International and the Super Buddies against a group of OMACs. Badly wounded, she was saved by the sacrifice of Rocket Red. Guy Gardner and Booster Gold took her to a hospital. After recovering, Fire appears as an agent of Amanda Waller. One Year Later Nearly one year later, after the Crisis, Checkmate was reformed under the supervision of the United Nations and Beatriz became the Black King's Knight. Though she no longer reported to Waller who was made White Queen, Waller blackmailed Bea with evidence against her father and forced Bea to perform covert assassinations.15 Waller had previously implied that Beatriz actually enjoyed the violence and depravity that was a part of her job. It was revealed that as a girl Bea had been trained to kill by her father. Despite her past as a dutiful soldier and daughter, Bea expressed remorse over taking part in a Checkmate mission that resulted in the deaths of as many as 50 Kobra agents, many of whom were immolated by Fire herself. Waller once again blackmailed Fire into covering up a coup in Santa Prisca. There, Fire killed Colonel Computron for Waller in order to protect her father, who, in the mid 1970s, under a right wing military dictatorship, had ordered thousands of innocent deaths in Operation Condor, a US-supported 18 South American anti-communist program that involved assassinations, torture and forced disappearances. He was never caught and Beatriz had always kept his secret. When the murder of Computron was exposed by fellow Knight Tommy Jagger, Fire was jailed. After a visit from her superior, the Black King, Col. Taleb Beni Khalid-Isr, Beatriz agreed to turn over her father to international authorities for war crimes. Khalid had convinced her to act as the superhero that he'd chosen for his Knight. Return of Ice after years of anguish and grief over the loss of her friend and ally Ice, Fire is at last reunited with her after the long-deceased hero is miraculously resurrected in the pages of Birds of Prey. Their renewed relationship, never shown on panel, is referenced again when Ice, accepting a date on Oa with her lover Guy Gardner, refuses his proposal to cohabit on Oa claiming how she decided to get her life together, on Earth, with some help from Beatriz herself. Gardner claims that Fire is manipulating Tora. Generation Lost Fire is recruited as part of a massive group of superheroes tasked with hunting down the JLI's founder and Ted Kord's murderer, Maxwell Lord. During an encounter with Max at the Justice League's former New York headquarters, Fire is rendered unconscious alongside Ice, Booster Gold, and Captain Atom. The former Justice League members awake to discover that Lord has used his mental abilities to erase his existence from the minds of every single human on the planet, save for those present at the embassy. and the others. After she tries to tell Wonder Woman of her killing of Lord, Wonder Woman refuses to believe it. Fire discovers that Max has mentally influenced the world into believing that Checkmate has dismissed her for failing her psychological evaluation. Afterward, Fire encounters Lord in JLI headquarters. After mind-controlling Fire and then Booster Gold to prevent them from stopping him, he ports from the old JLI embassy back to Checkmate. Before they can figure out their next move, the base comes under attack by the Creature Commandos. Caught while powered down, Fire is shown having been shot several times. Fire is able to heal by using the bandages of the medic mummy of the Creature Commandos, but is unable to keep Blue Beetle from being kidnapped by Maxwell Lord. While the team deals with the apparent loss of Blue Beetle, Fire bonds with Gavril Ivanovich the current Rocket Red and the two grow close, eventually sharing a passionate kiss. Powers and Abilities Powers *'Pyroplasm Form': Originally Beatriz's only power, gained from a saturation by an organic energy source called Pyroplasm, was the ability to breathe a jet of green flame from her mouth this accident also permanently dyed her hair green as well. During the Invasion cross-over event, the alien Dominators set off a "metagene bomb" in the upper atmosphere which affected all super-powered beings and, after a period of illness, Fire found her powers greatly magnified as an after-effect. The "new" Fire was now able to completely turn into a being of green flame, in which form she could fly and throw devastating blasts. *'Pyrokinesis': Fire can create and project green flame. She can also transform her body into living green flame. *'Intangibility': Solid objects could pass completely through her form without causing injury. *'Flight': Fire can fly through an act of will. Abilities *'Covert Ops Agent': Beatriz is also a skilled investigator and espionage agent. *'Expert Combatant': Beatriz was also trained by Batman in hand-to-hand combat. *'Mental Resistance': She has some resistance to mind control due to the fact that, as a native speaker of Portuguese, her mind is resistant to instructions given in English. *'Fashion Designer': She is shown to have a marketable fashion sense having at times worked as a fashion designer. Strength *Fire's strength is consistent with that of an adult human female in good physical shape who engages in moderate regular exercise. Weakness *'Emotional Distress': Unfortunately, it took her some time to come to terms with her increased powers, and she often "flamed on" involuntarily when stressed or angry and sometimes still does, a distressingly common event for a character depicted as having a tendency towards passionate outbursts. Equipment Weapons *Coming Soon Notes *Coming Soon Trivia *Coming Soon See Also *Fire/Gallery Links *http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Beatriz_da_Costa_(New_Earth) *http://www.comicvine.com/fire/29-4439/ Category:Justice League International Members Category:Former Checkmate Members